Herders' yurt camps
Felt yurts on the summer pastures, mid-June to mid-September.
Ninara from Helsinki, Finland — CC BY 2.0 · Benjamin Goetzinger — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Thomas Depenbusch (Depi) from Cologne, Germany — CC BY 2.0 · Thomas Holbach — CC BY 4.0 · Ninara from Helsinki, Finland — CC BY 2.0
Song-Kul is a mountain lake of the Inner Tian Shan, at 3,016 metres in northern Naryn region. It covers about 270 square kilometres and is 29 km long, but at most about 13 m deep. Kyrgyzstan's largest freshwater lake, second only to Issyk-Kul, it freezes from late October to May and has been a Ramsar wetland since 2011. Local people revere the lake as sacred. The basin, once a tribal meeting place, holds burial mounds; on its south side lies the Tash-Tulga, nine rings of eight stones each, which legend says the epic hero Manas set up as hearths. The marshy east, protected for its geese since 1971 and in the Karatal-Japyryk reserve since 1998, keeps a few nesting bar-headed geese; demoiselle cranes breed at one of their highest sites. From late May herders bring flocks and horses to the summer pastures, and from mid-June to mid-September local families host guests in felt yurts, with meals and kumis, fermented mare's milk. Visitors ride, walk and watch birds outside the fenced nesting zone on the Batai-Aral spit; two- or three-day horse treks come over the passes from Kochkor or Kyzart. The lake lies about 67 km south-west of Kochkor, 85 km north-west of Naryn and 112 km north of Tash Rabat as the crow flies. No bus runs there: jeeps from Kochkor take two to three hours over the easiest pass, Kalmak-Ashuu (about 3,446 m), mostly on dirt tracks; driving off them onto the pastures is fined. Snow shuts the passes from late October to late May; in season, stay overnight.
Felt yurts on the summer pastures, mid-June to mid-September.
Demoiselle cranes, a black-headed gull colony and a few bar-headed geese.
Two or three days over the passes from Kochkor or Kyzart.
Song-Kul basin, northern Naryn region
July averages only about 11 °C, and nights can fall below freezing even in August. Camps provide felt blankets but may have no heating, so bring warm layers and a hat, and take your first day slowly at this altitude.
Falls on the Kajyrty, the lake's only outflow, kept fish from swimming up, so it had none until the late 1950s. Stocking then brought in several species, among them peled and whitefish, which became its commercial catch.